Sadly, the list entitled “Great Moments in Italian Pop” is short; but the entry that must surely be at the top is probably very near the top of the list entitled “Great Moments in All Pop”. It’s a 1972 song by Adriano Celentano.
It’s pure gibberish – a parody of what anglophone pop sounds like to people who don’t speak English.
I mention it here for a couple of reasons. The first is that it’s great. The second is that it’s a nice way of talking about people who appear to be going through the motions of thinking about ethical matters, but who just get it wrong, and are actually talking gibberish.
Via Dominic Wilkinson, this gem from BioEdge is a lovely example of bioethical prisencolinensinainciusol. On the face of it, it’s a plea for consistency when it comes to policymaking.
[I]n the Australian state of Queensland […], the police union has argued that pregnant women who abuse alcohol should be forced to live in safe houses. “Those [unborn] children also deserve a right to full life and health and should not be disadvantaged simply because of the actions or inaction of their birth mother,” said Union president Ian Leavers.
Obviously this is a controversial issue, but I can’t understand how one can both defend access to legal abortion and lock up women who might harm their children.
The link provided is to The Australian, which is behind a paywall, so not something I can access. However, News.com.au carries the story, too, reporting Union president Levers to have said that the state should be able to intervene in cases where children are at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome and drug addictions.
“Those children also deserve the right to a full life and health and should not be disadvantaged simply because of the actions or inaction of their birth mother. The state must have the ability to intervene and protect the unborn child when its mother refuses, or is incapable or unwilling to do so.”
Mr Leavers said tougher laws would complement the criminal code, which provides for a charge of killing an unborn child or grievous bodily harm for any person who violently kills or harms an unborn child.
This is a bit odd, all told. I mean: it might be easy enough to agree that pregnant women probably ought to reduce, or even eliminate, certain behaviours. But the idea that that might be a matter for the law is very strange indeed. What would the sanction be? Is the idea that it’d be better for pregnant women to be in prison? Fined? And what about the plausible claim that alcohol or drug abuse is itself a health problem? Or the distinct possibility that women who do drink or use drugs are much less likely to seek any medical advice at all during their pregnancy if they think that the state might punish them for their behaviour, thereby making a suboptimal situation even worse? Legal intervention of the sort indicated would be both cack-handed and unjust.
But what about BioEdge‘s plea for consistency? From what I can see, there’s a fairly obvious set of rejoinders. First, the police union can say what it likes about what the law should be, but the role of the police is to enforce the law as it stands. So not interfering with a woman’s legal right to abortion is not the same as defending it. Likewise, mooting the idea that women might be sanctioned for risking the health of the foetus is not the same as locking women up. BioEdge seems to have got the difference between voicing an idea, and enforcing a policy, utterly the wrong way around. BioEdge‘s writer makes it sound like a moral argument is being made; but, really, it isn’t. Second, that it’s odd to defend abortion but advocate sanctions against risky behaviour in pregnant women may be true – I mean, it’s not a crazy suggestion – but it doesn’t follow from that that one ought to change one’s mind about abortion (which is, I think, given BioEdge‘s commitments generally, what the implication is): all else being equal, and given a whole truckload of secondary arguments about the moral status of the foetus and the moral status of the mother, it’s at least prima facie more likely that it’s the risky behaviour claim that’s off. Third, that the representative of a policing union has made a statement about what the law should be is in no way an indication that that statement should be taken seriously.
Come on, BioEdge. Fair play to you: you look like you’re doing the job… but… Prisencolinensinainciusol.
Maybe there’ll be richer pickings from the other story behind the link. In Tasmania,
the premier and deputy premier have released a long report on legalised euthanasia. They insist that there is no “sound evidence” of potential elder abuse. However, rates of child abuse are nearly 60% higher there than in other Australian states. Isn’t that a bit inconsistent? The kind of people who abuse children probably won’t mind abusing grannies.
Ummm… wait a sec: What?